SaaS Marketing Budget Calculator
Build a marketing budget from the growth you want and what it costs to win a customer, then compare it with a percent of revenue rule. The defaults are placeholders, so replace them with your own numbers.
Inputs
Results
Bottom-up budget
Percent of revenue rule
A 12% of revenue rule would leave you about $90,000 a year short of what this growth target needs at your current cost per customer.
How to use this tool
- 1
Enter your current ARR and the growth you want to add over the next 12 months.
- 2
Enter the share of new ARR you expect marketing to source, plus your average contract value.
- 3
Enter what marketing spends today to win one customer, and the percent of revenue rule your team or board uses.
- 4
Compare the bottom-up budget with the percent of revenue budget and see the gap.
Use cases
Setting next year's budget
Start from the growth you want, not from last year's spend, and see what that growth costs.
Testing a percent of revenue rule
Check whether a flat percentage of revenue is enough to hit your growth target.
Making the case for more budget
Show leadership how many customers marketing must source and what that costs per month.
Planning scenarios
Change growth, marketing share or cost per customer to see how sensitive the budget is.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a SaaS company spend on marketing?+
There is no single right number. Many teams start from a percent of revenue, but the better check is whether the budget can source enough customers to hit your growth target at your current cost per customer.
What is the bottom-up budget?+
It starts from your new ARR target, takes the share marketing should source, converts that into customers using your contract value, and multiplies by what marketing spends to win a customer.
What percent of revenue should I use?+
The default here is only a placeholder. Use the rule your board or investors expect, or compare a few values to see how far they sit from the bottom-up number.
What counts as marketing cost per customer?+
Total marketing program spend, including ads, content, events, tools and agency fees, divided by customers marketing sourced in the same period. Leave out sales salaries.
Why does the bottom-up number often differ from the percent rule?+
A percent rule ignores your growth target and your efficiency. Fast growth targets or a high cost per customer push the bottom-up budget higher.
What does this calculator leave out?+
It does not split spend by channel, model seasonality, or account for the delay between spend and revenue. Use it as a planning estimate, not a forecast.